“Erin is no’ far, is it?” Bradana asked.
“No’ far at all. But I begin to think ’tis a very great distance.”
“Tell me o’ yoursel’.”
“What d’ye wish to know?”
“Everything.”
He laughed softly with surprise but said, “Ah, there is no’ much to tell. I am a third son. I have trained most my life as a warrior, though we have few enough disputes wi’ our neighbors these days. I help in the fields when needed. None o’ us in Father’s house are above our fellow clansmen.”
“D’ye have a wife there? A lover to whom ye are promised?”
“Promised? Nay.”
“Why not?” She could scarce imagine it. A man who looked as he did, who spoke as he did, with a cadence like music. Women should be following him in droves.
“Baen must wed first. Someone o’ benefit to the clan, as he will be chief. Father has been busy arranging it.”
“I see.”
“Then there is Daerg.”
“Say no more.” The very idea of that wet specimen coming back here and battling to hold lands in Alba… Well. “Will ye no’ be allowed to choose your own wife?”
“Me? Aye. I do no’ matter much.” He gave her another wry smile. “I supposes I ha’ not yet met the right woman.”
“Choose carefully,” she told him, “since ye may. Having one’s choice made, and one’s future destined, is no’ a good thing.”
“As yours has been?”
“Aye.”
“D’ye know him well, this man who’s been chosen for ye?”
“Nay. I have met him thrice. Briefly.” Bradana thought about Earrach MacGillean. A dark, glowering sort of man, though not ill favored. In each of their encounters, he’d spoken but a few words to her.
“What is his nature?” Adair asked.
“Dour, from wha’ I can tell. He is no’—”
He is not you.But she could not say that, could she?
“I am sorry,” Adair told her softly. “’Tis a hard thing.”
It was. She did not want to go and live among strangers.
“The things we are sent to do are sometimes difficult to bear. If we could only choose—”
“What would ye choose?” she asked him.
Adair huffed out a breath. “Mere days ago, I would have said I wanted only to go home.” He looked into her eyes. “Now, as I say, I am not so certain.”
Her hand lay between them on the stone. He took it in his, did so softly and carefully, as if it were something precious. And the feeling came, it came again as it had in the forest. No vision of the other man this time—she saw Adair quite clearly. But the warmth, the sense of inestimable belonging. The desire…
This man was hers. And she was his in a way she could not hope to explain.
“Knowing what we do no’ want is easy,” she said. “Knowing what we do want is harder.”
